“Joe Manchin’s political grandstanding calling for Rep. Tom Marino to step aside from consideration as head of the Office of Drug Control Policy could be taken seriously if Manchin himself resigned, due to his supporting the Marino bill in 2016, which passed both the House and Senate unanimously. Manchin either supported the legislation or was too incompetent to know that it was on the floor of the Senate. Either way, under his own standard, Manchin should step down because he is clearly not up to the task of representing the people of West Virginia in the U.S. Senate.

“Joe Manchin had an opportunity to stop the legislation featured on 60 Minutes that gives the Attorney General a role in suspending drug distributor licenses in 2016. He failed. His failure wasn’t due to putting up a good fight and losing. Instead, it was in allowing the passage of the bipartisan legislation — unanimously. The truth is, the bipartisan legislation merely protected the due process rights of pharmacies against arbitrary license suspensions without senior Department of Justice oversight. The suspensions are still allowed under law. And there is no correlation between the license suspensions and the opioid crisis.

“The insanity of the politicization of everything in Washington, D.C. will be demonstrated as politicians who allowed the legislation to become law seek to score political points against their colleagues. We are in a new era of faux outrage based on fake news and everything is about the narrative with truth rarely interceding. President Donald Trump needs to stand firm with Marino and just say no to this shameless and baseless demagoguery.”

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